Dubai: Iran should look at what is going on at home before criticising France, Foreign Minster Catherine Colonna said a day after the French ambassador in Tehran was summoned over cartoons published by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Ties between France and Iran have deteriorated in recent months as efforts to revive nuclear talks, to which France is one of the parties, have stalled and Tehran has detained seven French nationals.
Charlie Hebdo this week published dozens of cartoons depicting the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian vowed a “decisive and effective response” because the cartoons had insulted Iran’s religious and political authorities. His ministry then shut down a decades-old French Institute for Research n Iran, saying it was a “first step”.
The ministry said it would “seriously pursue the case and take the required measures” to hold France accountable. On Wednesday, Iran summoned the French envoy to complain.
The magazine had billed the cartoons as a show of support for ongoing anti-government demonstrations sparked four months ago by the death of a young woman in September while in the custody of morality police.
Read the article in The Sydney Morning Herald (AP,Reuters).